Vietnam Honors Poet-Professor Fred Marchant

2/5/2010

The government of Vietnam awarded English Professor Fred Marchant the Commemoration Medal for the Advancement of the Arts and Literature in Vietnam in a December ceremony held on the eve of the 2010 International Conference on Vietnamese Literature.

The medal was presented to Marchant by Doan Chu Thich on behalf of the government and the Vietnam Writers' Association.

The conference, sponsored by the Writers' Association, drew more than 300 writers and scholars from more than 16 nations to Hanoi and Ha Long Bay.

Marchant, with Nguyen Ba Chung of the William Joiner Center, has published a translation of From a Corner of My Yard, the earliest book by the beloved Vietnamese writer Tran Dang Khoa.

Khoa was a boy writing poetry during the height of the American military engagement in Vietnam. He sent his best 20 poems to Ho Chi Minh in 1968, and the hand-sewn book was discovered later in the Ho Chi Minh Museum.

Marchant's work on the translation and his other efforts to bring Vietnamese artists, performers, and writers to Suffolk University's Boston campus helped lead to the award.